Brightest Star (2013)

Brightest Star: Directed by Maggie Kiley. With Chris Lowell, Rose McIver, Jessica Szohr, Alex Kaluzhsky. After the heartbreaking end of his first love, a recent college graduate sets out to win back the girl of his dreams only to discover a greater journey awaits him.

“u0026quot;Brightest Staru0026quot; is an indie romantic drama about the journey of winning back the love of your life versus finding yourself. The Boy (Chris Lowell) loved Charlotte (Rose McIver) and lost Charlotte, and now heu0026#39;s lost himself and will do whatever it takes to get her back. Thatu0026#39;s right, our lead character doesnu0026#39;t have a name but every other main character does. If you havenu0026#39;t figured it out yet, he doesnu0026#39;t know himself very well.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eSome of the early sequences are out of chronological order, but itu0026#39;s not difficult to figure out where weu0026#39;re at. He was with Charlotte and now heu0026#39;s not. The film seems to revel in its independence with many close-up shots of the characters deep in thought with nondescript music playing in the background. Itu0026#39;s a meandering tale of losing your first love and then finding yourself.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe over-arching element of the story is of the universe. The boy is a liberal arts grad but is really interested in astronomy and he wants the universe to guide him in making the right decisions. As he explains in the opening narration, you could say it does, but I really hoped he eventually figured out how stupid he was being. The whole physics/universe angle is starting to become greatly over-used in recent indie romantic dramas and comedies, so it just doesnu0026#39;t feel all that fresh anymore.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe writing was decent and the acting was good, but thereu0026#39;s nothing to elevate the film to a higher level. The boy goes from meaningless job to meaningless job because he just doesnu0026#39;t know what to do and it takes him a while to figure out how to win back Charlotte. I never understood why he wanted Charlotte back in the first place. We never got to know her and only saw her treat him terribly. But the point isnu0026#39;t to get to know the characters. The point is that The Boy could be any boy, and every boy has a Charlotte. And every Charlotte is different except that they donu0026#39;t love the boy anymore.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI needed u0026quot;Brightest Staru0026quot; to tell a more specific story. Preferably one where the boy wasnu0026#39;t so clueless and didnu0026#39;t need the universe to tell him what to do.”